AIToolsStack

State of AI

Mar 25, 2026|Living Document

Here's what I actually use every day. No affiliate links, no sponsored picks. Just the tools that survived my constant swapping and ended up earning a permanent spot in my workflow. This changes often — I'll keep it updated.

Coding

Where the actual building happens

Codex App

Two $20 subscriptions running GPT 5.4 High. My go-to for heavy coding tasks where I need the model to think hard.

Zen (Amp + Opus)

Amp with Claude Opus under the hood, paired with the Frontend Design skill. When I need a UI that actually looks good, this is what I reach for.

Zen (Cursor CLI)

Cursor CLI for Composer 2 and cloud agents. Good for orchestrating bigger changes across a codebase without losing context.

Daytona

Cloud sandboxes for dev environments. Spin up a full workspace in seconds, no local setup needed.

My 2026 Full Stack

The whole stack I use to build and ship — database to deployment. Wrote a full breakdown on the blog.

Apps & Tools

Everything else I reach for daily

Granola

AI meeting notes that actually work. Records, transcribes, and summarizes without me thinking about it.

OpenClaw + GLM 5

My general assistant. OpenClaw runs on GLM 5.

T3 Chat

For when I just need a fast answer from a chatbot without any IDE overhead.

Buddy Tools — Imagine

Image generation that I keep coming back to. Simple interface, good results.

Agents Development

Building agents that actually do things

Pi.dev SDK

For building general-purpose agents. Clean API, good abstractions for tool use and multi-step reasoning.

Opencode SDK

Purpose-built for coding agents. Handles file operations, terminal access, and code generation out of the box.

Models

ReferenceUpdated

Best AI Models (Updated)

I keep an up-to-date ranking of the models I think are worth using right now.

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